Make a Difference

To understand what's at stake, we posed the
following questions to two experts at the ACLU: Dr. Jeremy
Gunn, director of the ACLU's new Program on Freedom of Religion
and Belief, and Tania Simoncelli, Technology and Science Fellow
with the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project.

Q:What
is the concept of intelligent
design?TANIA SIMONCELLI: Intelligent
design is
a pseudoscientific concept that claims that supposed gaps or problems within
the scientific theory of evolution constitute empirical
proof for the existence of a supernatural, intelligent designer.
It uses the rhetoric of science to describe a fundamentally
religious view, but its methods and conclusions are totally
unscientific.

Q:Is intelligent design a
scientific theory?SIMONCELLI: No.
Scientific theories are testable, based on observable evidence,
and predict things about the natural world. There is no way
to test whether or not there is a supernatural, intelligent
designer, nor is there any way to observe such a being. Furthermore, intelligent
design doesn't even attempt to predict anything; it just
tries to poke holes in the scientific theory of evolution
and then says, See? Evolution can't explain why this organism
looks like that, so a supernatural being must have designed
it! There's absolutely nothing scientific in that. Of course,
proponents of intelligent design are free to believe whatever
they want -- just don't call it science.

Q:How
does intelligent design differ
from creationism?SIMONCELLI: Intelligent
design is the
most recent incarnation of an evolving political strategy
that began with creationism and creation science. What creationists,
creation scientists and intelligence designers have in common
is that they wish to overthrow evolutionary theory not with
better science but with an ideology whose origins have nothing
to do with good science. Traditional creationists explicitly
mentioned God and they based it upon their own particular
reading of the Bible that is rejected by many religious people.

Recognizing
their initial failures, intelligent design advocates
are now pretending to distance themselves from this traditional
creationist view. They're worried, and rightly so, that their
efforts to teach design will once again be declared an unconstitutional
government endorsement of one religion. This new wave of creationist
thinkers have reluctantly abandoned some of their weakest
arguments and also state that the intelligent designer is
not necessarily God. Some of them have suggested that it could
be a space alien, or maybe a very intelligent human being
with a time machine. What's interesting is that the intelligent
design movement tries to point to every little squabble among
evolutionary biologists as proof that the theory of evolution
must be false, but somehow their own internal disagreements
about the central idea of intelligent design don't matter.

Q:There
has been much talk in the media about the controversy surrounding intelligent
design. What
do you think about that?DR. JEREMY GUNN: This
is very unfortunate. There
is no scientific controversy about this issue the controversy was
created by people engaging in a lobbying and public relations
campaign to advance their particular beliefs at the expense
of good science. Imagine that Albert Einstein, instead of
writing respected scientific publications to persuade scientists,
set up instead an institute to lobby school boards to
adopt untested and improvable theories? Fortunately, Einstein
followed the scientific approach. Those promoting the pseudo-science
of intelligent design are lobbying and spreading disinformation.
One of the major harms from the controversy is that it undermines
the need for improved scientific education at the very time
that the United States is falling behind.

Q:Is
there support for intelligent design in
the scientific community?SIMONCELLI: No. Every major scientific
body in the country, including the National Academies and
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, hundreds
of individual scientists, and even President Bush's own Science
Advisor, John Marburger, have all said that intelligent design
is not science. Think about it this way: if every
time scientists came across a problem that they couldn't solve,
they just threw up their hands and said, This must be the
result of intelligent design, then we would have no need
for science at all, since we would already have the ultimate
explanation for everything!

Q:But
isn't there controversy about the theory of evolution among
scientists? SIMONCELLI: There
are plenty of fascinating debates within the theory
of evolution obviously
we don't have a complete picture yet of how evolution occurred
on this planet, and working out those particulars is one of
the most exciting activities in modern science. But whether
the theory itself is fundamentally correct is not controversial
at all. The theory of evolution is the best explanation for
how life on earth has changed over time. It has been reinforced
by independent observers over and over again for 150 years,
and so far no persuasive evidence has been put forward to
contradict it. As the geologists say, it's rock solid.

Q. Even if
we do not think that intelligent design is scientific,
is there really any harm to science if it is taught in science
classes?SIMONCELLI: The
problem is that we're talking about inserting one particular
religious belief into science education and calling it science.
People are trying to get the government to call their religious
beliefs scientific. This
would give kids a very distorted view of the scientific method
and take precious time away from teaching real science. The
biological sciences are probably the fastest growing technological
field in the world right now and the theory of evolution is
the cornerstone of every biologically related discipline.
Imagine if scientists believed that since AIDS and cancer
are such complex diseases, they must have been created by
an intelligent designer, and therefore a cure would also
have to be designed. Intelligent design's threat to scientific
literacy today could become a disaster for public health tomorrow.
We cannot allow this sort of pseudoscientific ignorance to
pervade our culture and paralyze our next generation of researchers.

Q:Is evolution
anti-religious?DR. GUNN: Evolution
is no more anti-religious than the earth's turning is anti-religious.
Evolution and the spinning of the earth are natural phenomena.
Of course some people try to assert that the recognition
of natural phenomena is anti-religious. Some people, acting
in the name of religion, criticized Galileo's claim that
the earth spins on its axis as being anti-Christian indeed
Galileo was persecuted by the church for his scientific
theories and observations. His persecutors claimed that
the earth was the center of the solar system and that the
sun went around the earth. If the earth turned, they argued,
then it would spin so fast that winds would blow us away!
Some people unnecessarily make
the same misguided common sense arguments to refute evolution.
In fact, many theologians and religious people accept evolution
just as many scientists believe in God and religion. By setting
up an artificial disagreement between science and religion,
people harm science without doing anything to help religion.
How was religion helped by denying that the earth rotates?

SIMONCELLI: I
think it's important to understand that the people behind
the intelligent design movement are
a small group of activists who by no means represent all people
of faith. There are many leading scientists in the United
States who are religious. People of faith can accept the overwhelming
evidence supporting the scientific theory of evolution, and
see no conflict with their own religious beliefs.

Q:The
current lawsuit challenging the presentation of intelligent
design in public science classrooms, which goes to trial
on September 26, will be the first time this issue has come
before the courts. How important is this case?DR. GUNN: Although
this is the first intelligent
design case to go to court, it is in reality a version of
several older cases in which courts have ruled that pseudo-scientific
theories based on a supernatural entity are religious and
cannot be taught in science class including twice before
the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968 and 1987. It is very important
if we care about science education, educating children to
understand the world, and educating a new generation of scientists
and doctors who will be able to fight diseases.

Q: Do
you think more school districts will attempt to introduce intelligent
design into science curriculum, or is this an isolated case?DR. GUNN: Some
schools are likely to try. The Dover case will provide many
reasons why it is not a good idea particularly if school
districts care more about the science education of their
children and less about making public controversies.

SIMONCELLI:Any
school district that attempts to masquerade intelligent design as
science is harming the educational future of its students.

Q:Can intelligent
design ever
be discussed in public schools? DR. GUNN: Of
course. It is a subject that is entirely appropriate for
inclusion in comparative religion, social studies, politics
and current events courses. The problem comes from attempting
to insert it into an inappropriate setting. While discussions
and readings about different myths are perfectly appropriate
in history, literature and anthropology classes, it is not
appropriate to teach them in science classes.

Q:What does
this mean for freedom of religion? DR. GUNN: Americans
have a right to believe, practice, and profess their religious
beliefs in the public square and
the ACLU defends these rights everyday. But the government
should not be in the business of selecting among different
religious beliefs and then trying to teach them as if
they were science. When the government chooses to endorse
any particular religious belief, then everyone is harmed,
whether they believe in religion or not. The American
approach to protecting religious freedom has been to keep
the government out of the business of deciding which religious
beliefs should be taught and which should not. Religious
beliefs are properly a matter for families, individuals,
churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and for public
debates not
for public schools.

Q:Some
activists have charged that the Dover case is not a religious
liberty issue, but a matter of freedom of speech. What do
you say to that?DR. GUNN: This
is one of the most amusing assertions that has been made.
The ACLU certainly supports freedom of speech and it will
defend the right of intelligent
design proponents to argue for their theories in public settings.
But while free speech is important, this does not mean that
pseudo-science should be taught as if it were science in public
schools. Do intelligent design activists argue on free
speech grounds that science classes should include astrology,
phrenology, atheism, witchcraft and Hindu creation myths?
As soon as we hear that those supporting intelligent design
actually advocate teaching these other non-scientific theories
in science classes, then we will know that they are serious
about this argument. Until then, we can assume that they are
simply playing a game to disguise what they are really doing.

Q:President
Bush recently said he believes that teachers should discuss intelligent
design alongside
evolution when teaching students about the origin of life.
Is it unusual to see politicians getting involved in scientific
debate? DR. GUNN: President
Bush should listen to his own Science Advisor, John Marburger,
who stated unequivocally that intelligent design is not
a scientific theory and it
is not a scientific topic. Fortunately, this is a free country
and politicians can make comments on many subjects. But people
in positions of responsibility should speak responsibly. And
people who want to improve education should listen to their
own science advisors!

SIMONCELLI: Unfortunately,
this problem is not limited to intelligent design. As
the ACLU illustrated in our June 2005 report, Science
Under Siege, there has been an extraordinary
level of political interference across many scientific disciplines
in recent years, especially in the areas of environment and
public health. During its tenure, the Bush administration
has repeatedly and blatantly sought to bias the scientific
recommendations produced by advisory committees by dismissing
experts whose opinions are politically inconvenient and replacing
them with those whose research and advice appears driven by
political ideology rather than sound science.